ABSTRACT
This chapter explores second-hand brand economies, as viewed through the phenomenon of on-line consumption, to challenge the assumption that used brands simply mirror the logic of first-phase brand consumption or automatically dissipate in value. Hinton's study of 16th-century Venetian auctions, for example, reveals the second-hand economy as key to establishing the value of people and things in the Renaissance period; it is through the moveable wealth of households, the flow and trajectories of specific types of objects from beds to ceramics, that familial hierarchies and kinship is made. The chapter concludes that the secondary market for branded goods has become so influential that brand strategists and economists are being forced to incorporate the second-hand brand economy into their overall brand development; first-hand brand identities are becoming swamped in the significance of their ghostly counterparts lurking in the unpoliced virtual worlds of post-retail consumption.
